I'm going to spare you the details because I have a feeling you won't understand half of it and honestly I'm having way too much fun at the moment to invest more time in this letter than I absolutely have to but here's the long and short of it.

Prior to my departure, Anubis asked me to marry him.

No, you do not have to be the flower girl. I asked him. He said no. So you're off the hook there.

He probably isn't going to ask you to be his best man either because I don't think Anpu has ever thought of another man as being "best" and if he did, the closest approximation of that would be his monster of a father who is the God Set so let's just get that straight right now.

Because I have a feeling the old codger is going to show up to the shindig and since I do plan on having you as one of my bridesmaids and you have a habit of fainting easily whenever anything scary happens AND HIS FATHER MOST DEFINITELY QUALIFIES AS SCARY....you need to know all this.

You should also probably go to the library and research the Ancient Egyptian pantheon and skip over all the parts you know (like Anubis) and just go straight to the part about Set so you can familiarize yourself with what you'll be up against.

Last thing I need on my wedding day is you with your idiotic questions.

Yes, you read that right. His father is a God just like Anubis is. You better hope he doesn't ever return because one look at you and after calling you a pansy (which you sort of are at times) he'll probably wave his magic wand and turn you into one of those unicorns you love.

Okay he doesn't actually have a magic wand but he does have considerable magic ability. I know. I once asked him to raise my dead kids but he failed. So that wasn't his strong point but I saw him do other amazing things and most of them would have turned your hair white.

He's also really mean, has absolutely no patience and his last words to me before HE disappeared was that if he ever saw his son and I together again he'd murder me ten different ways over the course of like a millenia.

Sooooooooooo not looking forward to that to be quite honest.

I've been murdered plenty of times but ten different ways in the way he put it? Yeah. Something tells me I won't appreciate any of it.

Anyway, so yeah, Anpu and I are getting hitched!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

To celebrate he took me on vacay to some tropical island the name of which I forget. Not that it mattered. We spent most of the time naked and reaffirming our love for one another in like forty three unique positions. Three weeks felt like three seconds and then we had to leave.

Except I begged him to let me stay. He wasn't pleased, said I was "up to something" which is his go-to phrase whenever I do anything he deems suspicious (which is pretty much everything I do, he doesn't trust me for nothing!) but honestly I just wanted to spend some time alone.

You were partly to blame for this. I remember you telling me that I should try to be a good person so I thought this was the best time to try and do that.

And I DID try I just wasn't so successful at it.

Hey, marrying the God of Death isn't an easy thing, okay? I have a LOT to plan and consider. I want to make him happy and I can't do that if I'm stressed. I needed some relief in the worst way!

Also the buffet at the hotel where we stayed has some of the most delicious food I ever tasted and that would include the waiter named Isaac I met whom I later devoured while drinking an entire bottle of wine before setting myself on fire in front of a very shocked crowd of native meat puppets.

They thought it was some sort of act sanctioned by the hotel until that is my demon posse of jesters showed up and everyone, like, died and stuff.

The shrimp potsticker thingies though were DIVINE.

Before you accuse me of being rude, though, I did offer Isaac some wine before I offed him. He said no. HIS LOSS. MY GAIN.

So Anpu went home without me.

I stayed behind to get my head on straight and do good things like a good person (and like I said EPICLY FAILED at that) and I got to thinking.

Aside from Jewelsie and a select few other Rhy'Dinians I really do not HAVE much in the way of family to invite to this wedding.

Most of the people Anpu and I liked are either dead or disappeared in some way and let's face it, what's left now leaves a lot to be desired.

I mean look at the Arch Witch. She's practically humping my fiance's leg EVERY TIME she sees him and she still doesn't get he doesn't have ANY interest in her!

And I'm not saying that to be cute or because I'm jealous that he MIGHT be interested in her, I MEAN he doesn't!

I have TRIED very hard to get him to cheat on me with her and his nose wrinkles in disgust every time! And I can be very persuasive! It's my super power as you know.

This is a man whose fortune was made over selling every kind of female he's ever laid eyes on and he can't even be bothered to grope Rena, even just a little?

That's saying something.

I like her. I do. I wouldn't want to see her in chains. But she's GOT to do something about her appearance and her attitude if she can't even manage to inspire passion in a peddlar of flesh!

I mean, come on!

The rest of the dregs of society that hang around the circular contraptions are no better either. These aren't the sort I can send a proper invitation to and expect to get a gift with a monetary value suitable enough not to insult poor Anpu.

And the others I do like I've dated and or slept with and that presents a conflict of interest, does it not?

As it is he's going to have a stroke when he hears WHERE I want to have the wedding, you think I'm going to be able to convince him to let these people watch us get married? HELL NO.

If my brother Tarathiele were still alive, he'd be invited. He'd probably give me away but he died, long ago, during Rhy'Din's First Era, the so-called "Golden Age" in a war he participated in with his guild White Dragon's Vengeance.

He was my real blood brother, you know. I miss him terribly.

So where does that leave me exactly?

I have made a lot of friends in my time in Rhy'Din and I have also had the pleasure (and sometimes misfortune) of calling some of those individuals family. Anubis is one of them. And before you start dreaming up ideas of incest in that crazy little brainpan of yours, we're not actually RELATED him and I. But we are related by a bond we took once. A bond him and I have always taken seriously. You and others may never understand it but we do. This happened when we were both younger. It was first a bond of alliance, then friendship and then grew into something more but he is as much my family as Tarathiele was. Because he's earned it.

As are you.

My...family.

If I ever had the opportunity to have another brother again I'd want that man to be you.

I may harass you endlessly, stalk your friends and give them nightmares in their sleep, break into your home and steal your belongings and basically make your life a living Hell (because that's what I do best, baby bro) but at the end of each and EVERY day, Gren Blockman, please know that whatever good parts of me there are left, you occupy a significant portion of what serves as my heart. Because YOU have earned that place in my life.

And I would defend you with that life if I truly had one to live.

Naturally I do not have a life like you do. Not in the same sense. I wish I did. I used to. But I surrendered the life I had so that I could be with the man I love (Anubis) for the rest of eternity and in doing so became this thing you know as The Whore of Babylon.

I'll never be Tara Rynieyn, as she once was, again. I lost her. Deliberately. My real brother would've been pissed if he were still alive. He also wouldn't like his future brother-in-law. Tarathiele despised slavers. He'd never understand why I made this choice. But it was mine to make and I did so without hesitation.

Do not feel sorry for me because in return I got exactly who I wanted and he was worth it.

Now, stop with the tissues because I know you're dabbing at your eyes right now like you do whenever you read those stupid comics with that nutjob Lucy in them and sit up straight. I really hate when you slouch. It's the most annoying thing you do and you annoy me plenty.

You're such a handsome fellow, you shouldn't be hunched over like you're some creature in the night.

I...am a creature in the night.

You're a goddamn Forest Ranger of Rhy'Din!

So you better act like it.

I will return.

With a vengeance.

I can promise you that much.

I always do.

I've been returning to Rhy'Din for more years than most of the people paying taxes in it now are alive to remember. Their grandparents and great-grand parents maybe but not these whelps.

When I do return I best find you in the condition I left you in or there will be Hell to pay.

And that is no turn of phrase either.

I will LITERALLY raise the legions of Hell to avenge you if I have to and such is in my power to do. I've got armies of nasties for miles on end, weapons of war in hand, ready to do my bidding, I only need whisper the command.

So warn the little meat puppets that what they thought was a permanent vacation from me was only a temporary respite and that I'll be coming back home soon and when I do, I will be, once again, trying to assassinate each and every miserable one of them.

Except you.

You are mine.

And don't you forget it.

Love always,

Your Older Sister.

P.S.

I shaved a monkey I found in a tree near the hotel and it was the singlemost hilarious thing I ever did in my life! His name is Bon. I didn't give him this name but his former master did. He's laying in a shallow ditch right now being slowly consumed by rats (the master, not the monkey) but Bon's coming home with me.

I can't wait for you to meet him!

He bites a little and is a bit of a kleptomaniac but once you get over the fact that he likes to groom you, picking imaginary gnats off your face like every two and half minutes and that he's completely bald and is a LITTLE self-conscious about it, he's okay to be around.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a hot yoga class to attend. The instructor is supposedly Argentinian. I never had Argentinian. I bet he's going to taste like cotton candy and happiness like God Simon's kisses taste like dragonfire.

Okay bye you stupid bastard.

Buh bye.

Last edited by Tara on Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

“How did you know that goblin was going to shoot that crossbow at me?”

“He had real shifty eyes. It was as plain as the sparkles in my crap.”

Gren was riding Alfred back to Ranger’s Headquarters to report the most recent ruckus at Blackthorn Tavern. As they passed through the woods on their journey, suddenly a yellow cloud of sulfurous brimstone exploded in front of the pair, revealing a demon with a little bellhop hat with a chin strap and everything.

“YAH!” Gren pitched backwards off Alfred and landed unceremoniously on the ground.

“IIIIIIIIII’m your singing telegram! Delivering your spam! I don’t mean to be a ham but WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU SAM! I’ve got a letter for you, ma’am!” The demon started off singing with his arms wide, did the jazz hands thing, then ended by dropping to one knee and holding out a letter towards Gren. “Oh, wait. You’re a mister. Well, I’m not singing again. You’ll just have to deal.”

“This is some freaky @#$%”, replied Alfred.

Gren was watching the demon’s performance with bug eyes, until he realized it must be another letter from a certain redheaded you-know-who from you-know-where. He sighed, dusted himself off and took the letter from the demon’s grasp. “Uh, thanks.”

The demon continued to hold out his hand and gave it several pointed looks as if trying to imply something.

Gren rolled his eyes heavenward, reached into his pocket and withdrew a silver noble which he placed in the demon’s palm. The demon took the coin, bit it with his teeth, and satisfied it was legit, poofed in another yellow cloud from sight.

“You ought to carry around some spare bottles of Holy Water for crap like this”, Alfred commented.

Gren read the letter. He went from red to white. Between reading about “forty three different positions”, Isaac’s horrible death, and a “shaved monkey”, Gren’s right eye began to twitch uncontrollably and his jaw hung slack.

“Oh no, they didn’t cancel “Confessions of Eternal Love” again, did they? Last time you locked yourself in your bedroom for three days.”

As if not hearing Alfred, he merely stumbled down the path with the same dumbstruck look on his face.

“HEY WAIT! You’re still gonna feed me, right? And brush me with the curry comb? Aw, dammit, Gren, pull yourself together!” Alfred clopped after Gren in the hopes of snapping him out of it.

I have to tell you what happened because it's just too good of a story to not tell and I'm kind of lonely here in my holding cell with only the paper and pencil they gave me to write down my confession on for company.

I spent a good hour doing a self-portrait of myself but when the guard came in to check on me and saw all the scribbles, he said, "Those are not words," to which I replied, "I know. It's me. A self-portrait. Do you like it?" He then said "No. It's all scribbly." I frowned. "I'm not scribbly!" He pointed to the paper, "You didn't draw anything." I said, "YES I DID YOU STUPID BASTARD! That is me! I'm a Mystery so you can't really see what I look like but I know and that's it!" And we argued back and forth until his supervisor heard all the commotion and made him come out of my cell.

I am now choosing to write to you instead seeing as my artwork doesn't really get across too well. See? Effective use of my time. THAT is a trait of a good person, no?

I am still struggling to understand the meaning of what a good person IS, Grenny. I know what you've said, what you've preached to me for the last few years and while I understand SOME of the concepts you prattle on about, certain parts, I admit, do elude me.

As an example:

When God chooses to smite down the meat puppets in crazy, unexpected ways like having entire swaths of land slide off a mountain into an ocean they call it an "Act of God" but when I stand on the top of a hotel with my little arms outstretched and scream down to a crowd of shocked onlookers "Now for my next trick!" and half a hotel splits apart and the side closest to the ocean slides into it, thus drowning all the grimy meat puppets still sleeping in their beds they call it "gratuitious violence" and "senseless murder."

I ask, IS THIS FAIR?

How come that jerk gets off the hook and I get a court-appointed psychiatrist to examine me?

Why doesn't someone examine HIM?! He's the one that constructed the cosmos, the heavens and Hell BEFORE he made Man. Which means he created the place he was going to punish you all in BEFORE you were ever born. Yeah. Never thought of it that way, did ya? How the whole game is fixed? How he knew none of you were going to be able to follow his stupid rules in the first place so might as well have some place to put ya when you mess up?

I, believe it or not, have never told a lie. Well, not to any meat puppet who directly asked me what was going to happen, which brings me back to my story so let's get started.

You think I'm an emotionless psychopath.

So do MOST people.

When the truth of the matter is, I'm just really a misunderstood girl who gets bored rather easily because the rest of the world isn't exactly on the same page as her and as a result certain miscommunications happen as we see here with this most recent evidence of a one Mister Martin Dunn.

OK, maybe not so much a miscommunication with ME, per se, but one nonetheless.

Dunn, I admit, gave me quite a shock. Most mortals when they meet me are so interested in taking all my clothes off that they don't stop to think of the important things like their mortality, the safeguarding of their soul and how it's just generally not a good idea to mix with an arch-demon such as I am.

And, like with Hell, the game is fixed with me too. God made me visually tempting on purpose. I mean, let's face it, if I looked like a Rhy'Dinian four-eyed marmoset, most men wouldn't want to bed me. I...wouldn't want to bed me either, because that's just gross.

So he made me...adaptable. As you learned early on in our association, I tend to look differently depending on who the beholder is. Most meat puppets see me as a young sixteen year old girl. So do you, or so you've told me.

Dunn, however, saw me as I truly am.

Our hotel rooms were situated next to one another. When he picked up the phone to call the escort service and requested a redhead, I couldn't help but overhear. My hearing is unnatural. Yours has evolved over time because of the nature of your work (Forest Rangery or whatever you call it) but mine is the way it is because I cannot die and as a result I get to hear things most people wouldn't be able to.

As I walked out of my room into Dunn's I wasn't doing so because I wanted to satisfy his particular need for a redhead. I was doing so because I was compelled to do so.

I never just show up someplace. I am dispatched.

You see, that's the rub. You think I go around murdering humans because I like to when the reality is, when I show up? It's because you messed up real bad and God wants you to know just how bad that is.

And it's not for any reason you might think like the person sinned. It's always because the person bruised God's ego. I'm his salve.

You could be an atheist (and in your case with the way you worship those Tree Lords of yours, you sort of are) and God doesn't care about you, one whit. He really doesn't. I am not even supposed to tell you this but when you die, you're not going to Hell because you DO NOT believe in God. I don't know where you go, to be quite honest, but it's not Hell and it sure ain't Heaven.

But if you BELIEVED in him at some point in your life and then suddenly STOPPED? Then he cares. THAT is when you go to Hell. It's one big soup bowl of former believers who hurt God's feelings.

But prior to your expiration he sends me to make you regret that decision.

Dunn is one such person. He used to be a priest. I won't get into how he left he priesthood or why but suffice it to say there came a point in time when Dunn realized that the game was fixed and he didn't want to be part of that insanity anymore nor preach to others about it and mislead them.

I can respect that. The man felt betrayed and lied to his whole life and he decided to live out the rest of his days telling the truth rather than leading others down a road filled with falsehoods and fake promises.

When I came into the light, Dunn hung his head and said, with a sigh, "So this is the end then? Of all the fresh hells, He sent YOU?"

I simply nodded and sat down on the bed beside him. I even frowned a little. I don't always enjoy what it is I am made to do. Put my hand on his knee and said softly, "Yeah, you got a raw deal, Dunn. For that I am sorry."

He looked up at me with an expression of curiosity and a little fear and said, "What's going to happen to me now?"

I shrugged, still frowning and said, "I think the better question is, what is NOT going to happen to you? Look upon my forehead and read the Doom of Man."

The words burned into my forehead by God's own hand when I was made shone with an unnatural light and Dunn was mesmerized. I could also tell he could read it.

"You are the third to know what it says," I whispered, patting his knee. "Only God and I know."

"Why are you showing me this?" he whispered back, still staring at the words.

"Because it's no fun to have a secret you can't share with someone else," I said.

For your sake and for his, I will say that I made it quick. I didn't derive any pleasure from his demise either. I tried to make it as painless as possible. Tried to be quiet about it too but this maid, she got nosy and came in the room to investigate and when she started screaming, my patience and whatever good nature I had left went out the window along with the maid's broken body.

By the time I entered the hallway her screams which were still echoing at least in my head if not down the hall had aroused the suspicions of the meat puppets milling about or who were in their rooms when it happened.

They had a lot of questions. Too many for me to answer and I admit I got a little overwhelmed.

I needed air.

That's how I ended up on the roof.

Pacing around, frustrated with having to do away with Dunn who didn't do anything to me but I was sent to kill him regardless, I must have looked like I was going to jump to the people down below. I was angry and I was yelling at God up there on the roof but not in any language the humans would understand. I suppose with how high up I was and hearing that I was saying SOMETHING in a frantic manner, they supposed I was speaking aloud my last words and a crowd started to form.

I could hear them just fine, they just couldn't hear me.

Well, not at first, I should say.

Then I started speaking to them. In their own language. Half of them urged me to go back inside and the other half were encouraging me to jump.

It always amazes me how utterly hypocritical humans are. They don't WANT to die themselves but they sure are quick to usher in someone else's death so long as they won't be punished for it.

It's why they have me in this cell. They don't know that I am not actually imprisoned here and that I can leave any time but that the only reason I am sitting here with this stupid pad and pencil is I'm waiting for something to happen so I can take care of another one that strayed from God's "loving" light. Please. It's so absurd, I cannot even believe I wrote that.

They like to have someone to answer for well, anything really. Humans love themselves a sacrificial lamb. So long as it isn't them, that is.

That's why I split the hotel in half.

That's why I called down to them, those heathens, and said "Now for my next trick!"

And that is why in a half hour from now I'm going to fold up this letter I am writing to you, walk THROUGH the bars they think are separating me from them, the bad from the good, and I am going to march straight into the warden's office and twist his head off like a goddamn top.

He'll pop like a grape, I just know it.

Because, you see Grenny boy, your kind ONLY cares when there's consequences. THEN you pay attention. When YOU are affected, you're all WIDE AWAKE but screw everybody else when they are suffering.

You might think the warden is a community servant, helping to keep the worst of society from spilling back into it, and he's a great guy but the truth is, he's scum.

When he's not at home beating his wife and kids, he's siphoning money out of the prison into one of his personal bank accounts.

But he ain't going to Hell for that.

No.

He's going to Hell because when he was just eight years old, little Joseph Targer, used to pray on his knees at night at the side of his bed and tell God how MUCH he loved him.

Forty three years later he seems to have forgotten that promise.

Oh it's OK if God breaks his promises to you lot but break one to him and that's when me and mine get to play with you all like the puppets you really are.

I am going to toss him up onto my onyx banquet table in my Hall of Sorrows, ease down into my throne of concertina wire and as the wires slowly dig into my flesh and the crown I wear down there is placed upon my head by one of MY faithful?

I don't know if I should tell you this or not but I'm in a slight, how do you say, situation here? This monkey's out of its MIND! I don't know what happened but it's mad and it's growing. Maybe because I am so little it is compensating? Is that the right word? You stupid meat puppets and your words. In my day we didn't use words, we used SMITING to get our points across.

But I can't do that now because then you start calling me a psychopath and unhinged again. Which I completely disagree with. I am hinged. I am TOTALLY hinged but this monkey ain't.

Good gumdrops, it's insane.

Are monkeys supposed to eat cars?

Like walk me through what a monkey is actually SUPPOSED to do because I'm no expert, I know that, I admit that, I have my flaws, but this thing ain't acting right I don't think and there's lots of people getting mad.

One of them, you're gonna love this, one of them said "I know what to do! Let's call the Park Rangers! They'll know how to fix this!" and because I was so nervous about the monkey, I yelled out without thinking "Yeah! Call Grenny! He's the bestest Ranger person anyplace! He loves cleaning up my messes!"

But then that lady got taken.

She was screaming.

She even bled a little.

The monkey got even more CRAZED.

Some kids were crying.

Least I think they were kids, could've been midget meat puppets, I don't know.

And now I'm sitting in a giant teacup hiding.

Now before you say something stupid like, "What are you doing in a GIANT teacup, Tara? That doesn't make any sense! There's no such thing!" I would like to remind you that the guy that bought Rita's Wings n Things (because you had it shut down you commie bastard) opened this "Alice in Wonderland" themed restaurant and it was either hide in here or curl myself around the Cheshire Cat's tail because that's on the roof too.

You know, camo-flagellate myself. Whatever.

Point is thing is huge. I'm tiny. I'd get lost in all the space and such.

It's eyes are kinda freaking me out though I gotta say.

Look. I know that you and I have differences of opinion on how to raise animals and children and whatnot. You're always criticizing the way I'm raising Horus as an example. But I had NO way of knowing when I took this monkey home with me that it was gonna do THIS!

There's just stuff EVERYWHERE!

I don't even recognize this city anymore after what it's done and it's not even finished yet!

Do you think you could use your Park Ranger super powers and get control of this thing?

Because if I get involved then it's another restraining order...

Then I have to go through recovery again...

Then I get the strange glances when I'm standing in the bagel place at a quarter to six in the morning with an ankle bracelet on and the cops all tackle me and say "House arrest doesn't mean fresh lox, crazy lady!"

And you just KNOW Anpu will NOT be liking that one iota!

So, really, what it boils down to Grenny is this...

As my almost brother you need to fix this before the monkey kills every thing you care about.

Me?

I care about a few things but this city's residents aren't one of them.

Did you ever think about just getting a nice goldfish? They are very relaxing to watch as they flutter around in their little bowl. You can even decorate it with colorful rocks and maybe even a plastic castle that spits bubbles. The point is no pets bigger than you, and no pets that can annihilate an entire city. Maybe a nice potted fern would do you good. Ever heard of the pet rock?

In my defense, Rita’s Wing N Things was in clear violation of City Ordnance. It says quite clearly that clear glass and colored glass are to be recycled in separate containers (Yellow containers for colored glass, white containers for clear glass, in case you were wondering). I considered it my civic duty to report them to the proper environmental agency.

Now then.

To calm the gorilla, you can’t just start yelling things at it. It is a wild animal, and it doesn’t respond well to threatening behavior. So calling it the “B-word” and throwing gyros at it is out of the question.

You have to make a soothing noise. Like humming. Close your lips (I know that is asking a lot of you, but bear with me) and hum something light. Ever heard the song “Clint Eastwood”? It’s by the Gorillaz! It sounds silly, but trust me, it works. Gorillas stick together. “I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad, I've got sunshine in a bag” are positive lyrics as well.

Secondly, you have to assume a non-threatening stance. That means no waving your arms and rude gestures. Or that thing you do when your hair turns into writhing snakes. My bowels clenched up just writing that. Anyway, go to one knee and look at him sideways. Maybe lick the back of your hand as if you are grooming. It lets the gorilla know that you are calm and in no way menacing. The gorilla might bump you to test you. If he does, just go into the fetal position. You know, just like I do whenever you get anywhere near me.

Lastly, I hope you’ve brought a tremendous tranquilizer gun. If you’ve done everything I told you, and the gorilla turns his back because you’ve lulled him into a sense of security, you let him have it right in the posterior with the tranquilizer dart. That’s a gorilla’s Achilles heel, kind of like a grizzly bear.

One more thing, if anyone wants to sue you for property damage (and they will) please don’t tell them you’re Missus Blockman. My credit rating has achieved the dreaded “negative score” because of that last time you blew up a falafel stand just to spite me.

I’m sending this note back with the demon that appeared in front of me wearing an official Rhyd Ex uniform. Complete with a clipboard for signature confirmation. I hope he didn’t kill someone to get it.

At what point in our SEVERAL year-long friendship/quasi-marriage/siblingship/whatever have I EVER indicated to you I wanted to open up an aquarium? Seriously? Goldfish? Are you for real? Oh God, I sound like Rena. Both of you are going to give me a heart attack one day. I'll be the only damn Arch-Demon that ever had one and when the lesser demons file around me and hover over my convulsing body they'll say something like "How is this even possible?" to which another more informed lesser demon will say "Rena and Gren, that's how."

Me. The Whore of Babylon. Felled by the likes of you two twits.

And you are such a LIAR! There is no such thing as Rita's Wings N Things, it was Rita's GYRO EMPORIUM, you dimwitted buffoon! I wrote that to trip you and I have you now! Oh yeah! So is that what you do now, talk all big and bad about all these environmental "causes" you have but don't actually follow through with any of your ridiculous threats?! You didn't report anyone to anything. You know how I know that?

Because "Confessions of Eternal Love" just came out with a new issue two weeks before Rita's closed which means your sorry ass was on your blow-up couch, in your Ranger Man Cave that you call that ridiculous tree dwelling of yours and you've been sitting there hoovering down Grenola Blockmans and getting drunk on that Broot stuff you're addicted to while slowly turning each and every page of that book, SOAKING up all the drama that idiot I kidnapped writes about.

MEANWHILE, I'm in a FREAKING GIANT TEA CUP YOU TOAD!

Soothing noise? Non-threatening stance? Lick the back of my hand as if I am grooming? TRANQUILIZER?!

I'm NOT going to the grocery store! HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO A WORD I'M SAYING?!

I'm trying to shrink the incredibly growing monkey that is, at present, climbing the radio tower while para-military forces, an army I wasn't even AWARE we had here in Rhy'Din, are pummeling it with water and what I am told from the crowd down beneath me are rubber pellets.

I keep screaming, "What the hell do you think that's going to do except make him bigger you MORONS?! Every time you hit him with something, he grows again! Do any of you miserable meat puppets have a single functioning braincell between you?! SET HIM ON FIRE! CUT OFF ITS HEAD! THROW A FEMALE AT HIM, CLEARLY HE JUST NEEDS TO GET LAID!"

But like you, they don't listen to me and now they're bringing in a translator and a crisis negotiator.

....why do I even bother to try and coexist with you people?

Seriously.

Don't ask me how I know this. Instead ask me how I'm spending this time, in this teacup, and wondering why I haven't frickin strangled myself I'm so bored.

You want to know what I'm doing? Let me tell you, you MAGGOT.

I am making a list of all the things you do which irritate me. Here's what I have so far:

1. You exist.
2. You are a terrible and ineffective superhero.
3. You keep your girlfriend in a pocket but I'm the lunatic because I sometimes devour people's souls.
4. You have a unicorn whose meat you will not let me sell on the black market or any market for that matter.
5. You smell like old brush fire and falafel dust.
6. You look like a falafel too.
7. You have a toothpick for a weapon.
8. Your credit limit is entirely insufficient for my current needs.
9. Your irrational fear of mayo affects my ability to make clear judgments at times.
10. You never save me when I need you to but Izira opens a bar in a "pocket dimension" and YOU ARE THERE EIGHT DAYS A WEEK!

I could go on but I think you get the picture.

You're useless.

Well, time to go now.

Have to blow this popsicle stand and see a man about a giant gorilla.

I am going to swing by later tonight and pick up some things I left at my own tree dwelling prior to returning home to the extravagant and immaculately-kept mega-mansion I share with my future husband and the God of Death.

You DO remember that right? Like, you don't actually think we're characters in a story do you? Anubis and I?

We are REAL, Grenny.

Sometimes I'm not so sure with you and your fanciful notions. Always got your head in those comic books.

Anyway, I'll probably see you and resort to waterboarding you or whatever comes to mind at the time.

Please do NOT run away from me this time. I JUST got back from vacation.

Last thing I need to be doing is chasing you around in the dark with you screaming about your irritable bowel syndrome.

Sorry you’re hiding in a teacup, but that’s what happens when you unleash a giant gorilla on a helpless, unsuspecting neighborhood. So you’re basically saying you’ve followed none of the tips that I, a trained professional Ranger, have given you. And you’re wondering why the gorilla is even angrier. You know, I just . . . nah, I give up.

And excuse me on one point. Yes indeed, Rita started out with the “Gyro Emporium”. Yes indeed, I did report her for nefarious activities such as the aforementioned failure to accurately sort recyclables. In an effort to avoid litigation and government red tape, she renamed her business “Rita’s Wings N Things” (‘Things’ being a veiled euphemism for gyros). Now she’s rebranded herself again as an Italian Ice vendor. Just because she doesn’t use glass any more, doesn’t mean she can get away with improperly using Styrofoam. Well let me tell you, I’ve got two raccoons camped out at her dumpsters and if she tries anything even remotely damaging to the environment, she’ll be hearing from me.

Why do you constantly bash “Confessions of Eternal Love”? Last month they produced a special Arbor Day issue (dedicated to yours truly) that did wonders for educating people on the plight of the forest. Remember Mitch? Well, last we heard of him he had died screaming in a fireball while falling off the Eiffel Tower. But wait! Someone had access to his DNA and CLONED him just to get back at Doctor Charlton! It’s an EVIL CLONE story! He set fire to the forest outside of Charlton’s chateau in the Swiss Alps in order to burn him and poor Lucille who were enjoying their secluded honeymoon after that fabulous wedding on the French Riviera (after Charlton single handedly fought off that band of RPG toting mercenaries, but that’s another story). Thankfully, Charlton and Lucille, together with the local chapter of Greenpeace, Trees for Teens, and SASS (Swiss Alps Science Squad) caught wind of it (pardon the pun) and dug trenches (mostly with that shovel that Charlton hit Biff with in the last issue) to block its progress. I loved that one line Charlton said to Lucille. “Baby, you’re one in a million!” And she was! She’d been struck by lightning!

I don’t know why you hate me so much. Why do you hang around me then if you do? It’s not like I go down to you-know-where to do you-know-what to you-know-who, you-know-when and you-know-why. If I’m irritating you that bad, then I suggest you tear down that treehouse over there and go back to pestering Anubis to marry you and throwing yourself on unsuspecting individuals because it’s your job as Lady of Babylon. Meanwhile, I’ll go back to making this world a safer and cleaner place to live, while enjoying Izira’s lemon crumb pie as a much deserved reward. And Broot. You can’t get drunk off of Broot!

Here’s hoping the gorilla doesn’t see your makeshift hiding place, suddenly get thirsty, and slurp you down thinking you’re a nice cup of tea.

Before I tell you what happened with the monkey (spoiler alert: it shrunk, rapidly so, and is like microscopic now, I have no idea why, this monkey is ridiculous with its genetic code and whatnot), I would just like to say that the Rhy'Din Department of Probation is quite possibly the apex of Hell.

And I live in Hell.

I know it like much of Fifth Ave and Kidmore Street know the back of my caboose.

This place escaped my notice. Seriously. All the employees are evil incarnate and that's not even a compliment right now.

Okay, are you happy I wrote caboose instead of ass? I do sometimes try to think of your feelings, Grenny.

Whatever.

Pay attention.

This probation officer of mine, let's call her Edna, is a real witch. She's either a direct descendant or close relative of Rena or is her future successor.

You, with your friendly demeanor and positive outlook on life, would not like this woman, Grenny. She's that horrible. In fact, she's so horrible I think I could actually be sainted compared to her.

You know what this witch did to me?

If you said "ankle bracelet", you'd be right but let me walk you through how this happened.

I know how you like bedtime stories you sick weirdo.

She says to me a few minutes ago, "Describe to me what was going through your mind when you pushed the man into the oven and turned the dial to bake?"

I blinked a little, because honestly moment to moment, I'm not really reflecting on my feelings and that's mostly because I don't have much of them in the way of ANY. Well, with a few exceptions. I mean like I'm constantly feeling on Anubis and all and I admit he does take up the majority of my thoughts where they might be approaching something akin to a pattern and I love you and Jewelsie, even though I don't torture Jewelsie as much as I do you. And you've NEVER dressed up like a homeless person like she does!

But yeah. Anpu. Sigh.

My pattern of thoughts consists of this: Anpu-Anpu-Anpu-Pillage/Burn-Anpu-Anpu-Stab A Meatpuppet in the Eye with garden shears-Anpu-Anpu-Anpu-Funnel Cake.

I love funnel cake. That stuff was made by an awesome person and if I ever meet that person, I am going to not kill them in the slightest but kiss them full on the mouth! Because they are awesome in the brainpan! Wooohoo!

Anyway, the witch is grilling me right?

So I'm like, "Cookies?" because why else would I turn it to bake? People BAKE cookies right? I don't know. Cookies? People? Does it matter if the oven doesn't know WHAT it is baking? I don't think so. I could easily claim the same ignorance as the oven.

"Oh, what's that you say your honor? That was a PERSON and NOT a cookie in there?! My bad!"

And then laugh nervously because I know how to do that.

I do.

So stop making faces you bastard!

I'm a complete novice in the kitchen although one time I did try to bake Anpu some oatmeal cookies but when he got to the gooey center that had the wings, he remarked that the taste "distracted" which is a little ambiguous if you ask me.

What was distracting about them?

What was he being distracted from?

Do I distract him?

DO YOU?

Of course you do. Why did I even write that?

The mere fact that you breathe is cause for great debate in our household. Anpu seems to think I should go easy on you, that you're as pitiful a person as you could get and it's not fair to expect you to rise above your station of being the tree-licking bum you are and maybe he DOES have a point?

I mean Edna seems to buy into the whole premise of you being a good influence. Sorta.

Oh right, I almost forgot.

She asked me, as part of this program they have me in (I forget the name but it did have the word criminal in it which was mildly offensive) where I was living and I casually said with you.

When she asked me where in the world WITH YOU was, I drew her a map to your tree dwelling. I even drew a fast and crude representation of that crazed unicorn you keep as a pet. What's that damn thing's name? Alfonso? Aloysius? Never mind. I don't actually care.

Edna did though.

She thought it was a one-horned Rhy'Dinian spotted rhino and I didn't really feel like correcting her and clueing her into the fact that the creature died out ten years ago.

Yeah.

Sad, innit?

The last of the Rhy'Dinian spotted rhinos being felled by some maniacal hunter's evil arrow, it falling to the ground and taking it's last GASPING breath and you weren't there to hold its little hoof and usher it into the rhino afterlife, were you, Grenny?

No, you were not. Why? Because you were shrinking your girlfriend down to pocket-size that's why and SCREW THE ONE-HORNED SPOTTED RHINO!

You call yourself a conservationist. Huh! When it's convenient maybe!

Oh, which reminds me about that damn monkey.

ANYWAY, Edna expressed surprise at the layout, height of it, the unicorn (I mean rhino) and the fact that it's fortified with a moat with creatures lurking in it and all and asked me why that was.

Again, without thinking because who CAN think when one is dealing with Edna, I said, "Grenny had it installed to protect me."

I then detail for her what happened at the underground bunker lab two Christmases ago and how I was kidnapped by an alien race hostile to my ex-husband's homeworld recently or whatever and how I'm constantly being persecuted.

Edna's eyebrows shot up and her assistant, this feeble-looking mousy assistant named, actually I forget it doesn't matter, they both laugh a little and tell me to stop teasing.

Because I know HOW it sounds, Grenny.

I mean, come on, me, be kidnapped by ALIENS?

By human scientists hellbent on the destruction of me and my boyfriend?

Psh. Get real.

But all of that DID happen as ridiculous as it may sound and I needed Edna to experience what it was like to be me. Because no one ever does that. You are included in that list. You point your finger of blame at me and you call me these insulting names and at NO TIME are you ever thinking to yourself, "Gee, Gren, maybe instead of picking on Tara all the time, you might think what it's like to live her sucko life?"

Then we got on the conversation about the monkey and Edna was, despite the story I had just told her, surprised.

She wanted to know how the monkey grew to skyscraper heights and why, as we sat there speaking, me with my leg shackles and mouth-muzzle so I didn't bite anyone and her and that idiot assistant of hers with their pastel colored dresses and bad manicures, it was now shrinking.

I really didn't have much in the way of answers but I did casually mention the giant teacup and how you left me in there.

Well that got her all perked up!

She says, "Wait just a cottin picking second, Tara!"

To which I said, "Yes, Probation Officer Edna?"

Actually I didn't call her Edna because that's not....never mind I already told you that.

She says, "If this gentleman is the man you're going to live with WHY would he leave you stranded in a giant teacup?!"

To which I responded, "I haven't the foggiest clue, Edna, but beggars can't be choosy. I'm homeless otherwise. So what if he slaps me upside the head a little with poison ivy leaves which I am HIGHLY allergic to, chains me to my bed just out of reach of the glass of water he places on my dresser each night to tease me and calls me names like "Snappy", it's better than living on the street now isn't it?"

Well Edna had a small coronary.

Then she stopped freaking and said, "Why does he call you Snappy?"

I pointed to the mouth muzzle they had squeezed around my little head and said "Because I have a rare condition which causes me to spontaneously chew on other people for no other reason than they are in close enough proximity to me enough to GET bit. My life is a nightmare, Edna, you just have no idea. When Grenny's not abusing me, you should see what those crazy people at the circular contraptions do. It's a wonder I'm still here! And that's only because of the good graces and generosity of God Simon who is my only friend in the world."

I have to admit, I felt guilty for not mentioning Jewelsie. She IS my BFF after all but then I'd have to explain how she likes to not bathe sometimes, goes off on excursions in the fairy forest and comes back with like three and half husbands, some of which I'm forced to hide when they go bad (like eggs sat on a counter too long), and all the other weird things that Jewelsie is sometimes known for.

You ask her, you bastard.

Because I can picture you sitting there with that stupid smirk on your face and you shaking that cubed skull of yours going, "She's lying. Jewell is a lovely lady. She's not weird! Tara's such a LIAR!"

You ask her about the mermaid, or the mushroom, or the rabid badgers that ate my seventeenth husband LUCARUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He didn't deserve a death like that!

YOU ASK JEWELSIE HOW WEIRD SHE CAN BE!

Oh.

Wow.

My forehead is throbbing a little now.

I love my Jewelsie. I do. I have loved her far longer than I'll ever love you and she is mine but she can get a little shady. It's not her fault. She's fairykind. They are, by their very natures, shady. They are adept at tricking you with glamour magic and if you don't have a strong mind, they turn it into essentially oatmeal.

Not that I've ever seen Jewelsie turn someone's brain into a breakfast staple but she's capable of it.

She beat a mermaid to death with a boat oar, you bet your ass she is capable of it!

Where was I? See you get me going on these tangents and I forget stuff!

Right.

Probation and how you're supposedly my "savior."

Edna and her assistant frowned. "You don't have any friends?" she asked and traded a sympathetic glance with her assistant.

I shook my head. "Nope, between the spontaneous biting and the really freaky deaky coinkydinks that seem to happen to me all the time where people I do happen to be speaking to, go missing? Yeah, I'm a pariah. My life is so sad."

The conversation continued for another hour and it was decided, for my protection and safety, they should place an ankle bracelet on me so they can find me should you decide to flatleave me in enormous silverware again.

Edna says with my small stature it's easy for someone in my shoes to get lost in the world easily.

Then when I told her how you carry your tiny girlfriend around in your pocket and only allow her to grow to normal size a few times a month, Edna grew concerned enough to schedule home visits with you, me and some head shrink they tell me is well-versed in situations like mine.

Exactly what do you think my "situation" is though, Grenny?

I was kidnapped by aliens.
I had to find my own way home because you left me on some distant moon.
My future husband asked me to marry him.
We went on vacation.
He left earlier than I did and I came home with a monkey.
Which proceeded to destroy half of Main street and a few marinas.
Oh and the movie theater.
My best friend is quite possibly a serial killer.
Who can make you think your feet are green with just a thought.
Sometimes I'm nervous about the things she says not because they do NOT make sense but because they DO.
Is my brain oatmeal now too?
You are useless.
I was left to fend for myself in a giant teacup.
Frightened out of my wits.
Clinging to survival.
Battling an adversary five thousand times my size.
While you read porn and ate snacks.

And now you and I have to get therapy and Edna says if you do not abide by the terms of the program she will have you arrested for ward abuse.

I don't even know what that the hell that is.

Ward abuse.

When she said that my first thought was the circular contraptions and how all you wussies use those wards to ensure you don't die and if that's the best form of entertainment we have, I'd like to die rather than see it again.

But I don't think that's what Edna meant by that.

I have to go now. When the monkey trampled the movie theatre he broke open the concession stand glass so there's like all this free candy for the taking.

I'm gonna go get me some chocolate covered raisins.

I'd ask you if you wanted anything but by the time I get back home to your tree dwelling the monitor Edna assigned to watch us should be there so I don't think you want to make a bad first impression on him by consuming large quantities of shriveled grapes covered in chocolate.

It sends the wrong message.

Like you are sloppy.

Like you leave your ex-girlfriend stranded in a giant teacup you heartless fiend.

I'll see you later.

I wish this bracelet thing they put on me would stop making this noise. This is why I hate Edna. How is this for MY protection?!

Thanks a lot for sending “Edna” around to my treehouse to grill me as if I was some homicidal maniac. She stood glaring at me with her arms crossed, while the “doctor” that accompanied her sat me in a chair and poked and prodded at me with a stick, while giving me his own personal brand of a psychological evaluation.

Luckily for me, I’ve been through plenty of those, so I was prepared.

He wanted to know why I torture my poor ward so. I told him I didn’t have a ward. He checked his clipboard, then looked at Edna, and checked his clipboard. “But it says here you have a ward named Tara”. Then my face started spasming. Even worse then when I see a Styrofoam cup lying in the forest when a designated trash receptacle is STANDING RIGHT THERE.

Ahem.

I calmly explained to him how you are the Lady of Babylon. He wanted to know what that meant. I said by lady, I meant like a lady of the night. Then he used the W-word. I nodded in the affirmative. I explained your mission to cause as much havoc as possible due to your designated profession. He found that hard to believe. Then I recounted back to him all the things you said to him to prove my point. 50 foot gorillas? Stabbing? Burning? Pillaging? Anubis Karos? Baking people in ovens? Funnel Cake? Isn’t it obvious she’s evil?

I also told him about the irritable bowel syndrome, hot sweats, cold sweats, eye twitching, numbness in the fingers, rapid heart beats and palpitations, tendency to curl up in the fetal position as a possum-like defense mechanism, and my difficulty urinating in public restrooms. He didn’t want to talk about my problems any more after that.

But he did tell me that whenever you accuse me of things, I need to defend myself. Not only to reduce anxiety, but to bolster my self worth. So here goes.

You once accused me of staring at my wall, while eating milk and cookies and laughing. Let me ask you something. Didn’t you stop to think that maybe I’m a happy person? I just enjoy some good milk and cookies. Maybe I just like to stare out into space and reflect on my day and what it truly means to savor chocolate chips. You act like everything I do is a crime.

The loss of the One-Horned RhyDinian Spotted Rhino is one of the great tragedies of this world’s biosphere. How can you be so cold hearted about that? Those rhinos never did anyone any harm. It’s too bad I wasn’t around at the time, or I would have had so many activists organized with protests, letter writing, and brownie bake sales, that we would have made sure those poor creatures would have been around for future generations to enjoy. Considering the amount of death and destruction that occurs in your general proximity, as well as the fact that you made a specific reference to its extinction, you are now under suspicion for this crime against nature. I’m going to keep my eye on this disturbing development.

I called you “Snappy” after you chewed the neck, and consequently the carotid artery, of Vernon my backup garden gnome, the one I had to hire after you threw my first one into a wood chipper. You said he looked at your gyro with extra tzatziki sauce the wrong way. I got so mad I wanted to call you the B-word or something awful, but I clenched up and couldn’t get any words out, and just ended up turning red, then white, then purple.

Why do you pick on poor Jewell? You have a lot of room to talk about her three-and-a-half husbands (if a half a husband is even possible). Considering I’m your (under duress) fifty-first husband. Thankfully it’s an unconsummated one. Why you think I want to be the last notch on your sliver of a bedpost is beyond me.

By “freaky deaky coinkydinks” do you mean killing the OverRanger (who was two years away from retirement) because you thought if you rubbed him out and stole (and wore) his hat that made you the new one? First degree murder is not a “coinkydink”. It is not a happenstance. It’s not even a fluke occurrence. I would tell you to control yourself, but to use your own speech patterns, you would just get mad at me and threaten to torture me with some combination of Aitch-Eee-Double-Hockey-Stick-Fire and Brimstone.

Thankfully, I think I convinced Edna and Doc (who I expect got his degree from a mail order catalog) that I was innocent. She agreed not to leave behind the monitor, remove the tap from my phone (I have a phone? If your cellphone is in my name (and my credit card) then that’s good for you, I guess), and take my name off the Town Watch watchlist.

As you rampage wantonly through the streets of RhyDin, try to remember that I am a human being, I have feelings, as well as several issues that I am working through as best as I can.

With a tragic sigh,
Gren

P.S. “Confessions of Eternal Love” is not porn. It is an “adult drama”. THANK YOU.

Before you start asking questions like "Where the hell are you? Why aren't you back yet? You said you'd be back and still aren't thus leading many of us who love and miss you to question if you even exist anymore, umm, do you?" allow me to say that while I have made some pretty famous excuses for my behavior in my time, this one beats them all and is DEFINITELY legit!

And I still very much exist you bastard so let's not get crazy in our thought patterns here because that'll just piss me off.

I told you.

You're stuck with me, come Hell or high water and you should know Hell did have high water one time when the Acheron flooded and wiped out all the idiots aimlessly wandering around on the shores which was one of the funniest things I ever saw in my life you should know.

But it hasn't flooded since so don't get your hopes up.

And calm your little self down because I know you're turning beet-red like you normally do when I yell at you and if you're not hyperventilating right now I should probably warn you that you will be by the end of this tale.

That said, let's begin....

------------

Probation sucks.

Anyone that says otherwise is an absolute liar and a fool.

It is worse than having your favorite restaurant closed because of unspecified health hazards (read: RITA'S WINGS N THINGS YOU MONSTER!) when you're almost-pregnant and craving some fried chicken.

I don't know why some of your meat-puppety brethren seem to think it's all that and a bag of chips but back when I was in prison seven or so times ago, I shared this cell with this guy named Jason who was ALL for it you'd think he had invented it. Never shut up about how probation was better than doing time.

He was doing a bid for robbing a bank, I was in there for planting a hammer into Mr. Pendleton's head after he told me I wasn't allowed to walk on his grass no more and then he sorta became no more...get it, Grenny? Huh? Ha ha. He died you idiot. Hammers don't kill, Tara's do. Hee hee.

Anyway, on and on Jason went about how his probation officer was so much nicer than his parole officer which led to my asking him questions like "What the hell is a probation officer versus a parole officer?" because I have to be honest here Gren, I'm an arch-demon, not a career criminal. I don't know the buzz-words for these things and even if I did, would I really care?

No.

But when you're in prison sharing a cell with Jason or people like him you really don't have a choice in terms of what kind of entertainment you can have.

Jason was very entertaining, I have to say.

Especially after "lights out" when I'd snuggle up with him under his blanket. He entertained me for many long lonely nights.

That is until seven months later they found him in pieces under that blanket and naturally because I was the only one in the cell with him, I was the most likely suspect. When they hauled me into court for THAT trumped-up charge and I explained to the judge that it was not my fault Jason exploded into meat-puppet bits and he asked me how he got that way, I said:

"I sneezed, your Honor."

To which the judge, wide-eyed, replied, "What do you mean you...sneezed?"

And then I explained how as an arch-demon I have special super powers that meat puppets cannot defend against and sometimes Jasons explode into meat-puppety bits under a blanket when I do things like sneezing whereas mortals can sneeze and no one you know, disintegrates.

I continued, "We come from two very different worlds and schools of thought, your Honor. My bodily functions kill, yours don't and honestly are those twelve people there sitting in that box even remotely psychic? Because if not they don't truly qualify as my "peers" considering my brothers are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and my dragon, which I shall be riding during aforesaid ending of the world and trampling over many of you still alive, is ten times larger than this entire city and can swallow it whole."

Because my DNA or whatever wasn't anywhere on his body (or I should say the parts of him they could vacuum up off the blanket, some of him FUSED with the fabric and that was kind of gross) and the guards had failed to check on Jason when he had been intact prior to his bodily explosion, the charges were downgraded from Murder in the First Degree to parking next to a fire hydrant and this was before I could even drive!

Yeah.

Don't try to make sense of that.

I still can't.

Anyway they let me off with a warning but I still had to attend rage counseling which sucked just like my current probationary status sucks now.

I'm on a farm Gren.

Doing what they call "community service" and since I don't really have a solid understanding of what "community" really means in the common parlance (because to me it means eat everyone you can see and don't share a single appendage, even amongst friends and I am told by my probation officer that definition is WRONG), I'm struggling to abide by the terms of this agreement.

They can't put another ankle bracelet on me because apparently when those fifty coppers tackled me in the town square it slipped off, fell down a sewer grate and an alligator that had been living there for thirty or so years unmolested, swallowed the damn thing and died.

It choked to death on the beeping bracelet from Hell they had put on me.

That was somewhat sad.

I had not intended for that to happen but even still the death of the gator was added to my charges and after I get done feeding the chickens, teaching the pigs how to oink properly (because I'm part pig after they grafted my leg some time back with pig skin?) and milking the damn cows I have to go to some gator rehabilitation center and "reintegrate" the gators back into gator society.

I have no idea what this will entail but I seem to think I'm going to get wet and I'm already pissed just thinking about it.

I hate getting wet.

In the traditional manner, I should say.

Whatever.

---------------

Wait hold on, the horses are starting to freak out in the barn again and since part of my duties is protecting this idiot farmer from home invasions and whatnot, I have to go check it out.

Don't go anywhere though, you're gonna LOVE this story I promise.

Or now that I give this some thought maybe you won't but I will LOVE telling it to you!

Because the idea of you fainting from reading what I write to you is what is driving me these days Grenny.

It's what's getting me through this veritable nightmare I now find myself in.

Jesus those horses are loud.

How can I think when all this racket is going on?

I swear if I go in there and them horsies are getting it on, Edna's going to die the second I get back in town.

If I have to be trapped on this farm for a few months to pay back whatever "debt" they think I owe you all and I'm missing out on naked time with my Anpu but the horses are going at it left and right, Edna is going to wish she was never assigned to me.

I will string that bitch up in the very town square they tackled me in and convince the local school children she's a pinata and hand them all metal bats to play with.

See if I don't.

I'm very persuasive.

As Salome, John the Baptist's head was delivered unto me on a silver platter and all he did was look at me funny.

There was a bunch of teenagers in the barn smoking some weeds and the horses were getting worked up like you do whenever I put one of your slave gnomes in the wood chipper.

I'm getting you another one for Christmas.

A wood chipper, not another slave gnome. You cannot collect them like they're trading cards, Grenny! It's just not natural.

Why can't you find a normal hobby like beating geriatrics with hammers or slipping razor-blades into Halloween candy like I do every year?

Anyway, I said to one of them, this kid named Sean, prior to my evicting them from the property "Hey you, what are you smoking?"

To which Sean who was not screaming at that moment had said, "Weed," and then he kind of made a shooing motion at me and my brain went haywire a little and some horrible things happened, some of which involved piano wire but NONE of which I'm going to describe to you because you'll just JUDGE me again and I won't like it very much.

You'll say things like "You HURT that boy dincha?!"

And I'll say in return, "NOOOOOOOOOOO! He hurt himself!"

Then we'll argue.

Like we always do.

Because you're a judgmental ass.

I'll get mildly upset.

I'll start drumming on your head again.

Then YOU will be screaming.

And how will that get me off this damn farm? It won't, that's how, so let's not go there.

The point is, Sean was somewhat conscious when I got back to the farm proper and the horses have calmed down. The latter is all I care about.

But because I know you like to OVERANALYZE every damn thing I do, let's walk through this one, together. Like old times, ok?

Was Sean happy? Probably not. I didn't ask. But he was breathing! I swear it! I made sure. I remember you saying that due to the fact I like to pop up out of nowhere, I sometimes cause fright in unsuspecting meat puppets and it's a good idea to check that they are breathing before I trot off to go do some other activity I might like.

Like feeding one of your gnomes into a wood chipper which now needs to be replaced because I burnt the motor up. How does that EVEN happen?! I'll tell you how, Meat Puppet Engineering that's how. When demons build stuff, we do it RIGHT.

Or maybe writing a secret love letter to God Simon and a not-so-secret love letter to my Anpu. Hey, you better tell him I love and miss him or I'm probably going to try and rip your jaw off when I get home.

IF I get home, I should say.

Is it just me or is it seeming like it's taking me FOREVER to get back home?

I feel like the Universe is conspiring to keep me apart from you for some strange reason.

Oh!

I just thought of something!

Why was that boy Sean who was very much sucking in oxygen when I planted my bare foot in his face and told him to beg for his pathetic life, smoking weeds?

Is this a thing? Do the meat puppets do this with regularity? Is this why they can't build nothing right? They are always loopy? What is the point? Teach me, Grenny. You're a weirdo so I know you have an in with these sorts.

OK maybe that wasn't so nice to say. Let me rephrase here.

I'm asking you because I know you like to tap into the VAST mushroom reserves of the forest you dwell in and I know that after consuming them you get kind of wibbly so....what's the deal?

Do YOU smoke the weeds too, Grenny?

Are there healing properties to them?

You do smoke the weeds. I just know it. I have this kind of eighth sense with you where I automatically know what you're doing or going to do and say despite not having actual confirmation of it.

Yes, I have seven senses.

No, I am not going to list them.

Because I said so.

SHUT UP.

I can see it now.

There you are, sitting on your deck chair carved from the same wood that toothpick you use to defend yourself in fake combat is made with, rubbing those shrooms all over your bare chest and every so oft you reach for the weeds and meanwhile your body's probably like "He's lighting up the dandelions again! BRACE FOR IMPACT!" and you don't care.

You want to know why?

YOU'RE A LUNATIC THAT'S WHY.

Ugh.

I hate you.

Speaking of people I'd like to drown in a vat of pickle juice until they are half dead and then flay them alive with a cheese grater, let me tell you what's been going down at ye ole homestead, hmm?

-----------------------

If Pain had a taste, was an actual flavor one might savor, it would taste like COMMUNITY SERVICE.

For the last week that I've been confined to this farm the farmer, Jim Bob, has forced me to milk just ONE of his twelve hundred and forty two cows. Sorry, heads. That's what farmers call them I have learned and I honestly do not know why I need to have this information in my brain because other than annoying me that I do know this information it does absolutely nothing for me in terms of being an arch-demon.

I cannot use this information to take over the world or end it or as a means to any end, it's just now sitting in my brain where it will be stored with other useless information like how many dolls...sorry ACTION FIGURES...you have in your possession. My Gods you could open your own toy store and that's not even funny right now. How in the hell did you pass that exam the head shrink gave you? There's no way....

I made the mistake of wondering after day two of this grueling task why THIS cow, you know? I could see if he wanted me to share the workload with the other unfortunate souls stuck with me in this hellhole and milk forty of them each day but he was adamant I JUST milk this one and that got me thinking, WHY?

And I got my answer when I sat down on the milking stool and saw that the cow was normal-looking EXCEPT for the fact that it only had one teat.

Forgive the term but it is the PROPER word for it, Grenny, so calm your political-correctness right now because if I said "nipple" your head would've split in half or something so I opted for the SCIENTIFIC TERM instead.

It was also mooing up a storm and that is probably because the first day I forgot to "express" the milk from the teat and the damn thing was full. I don't know if this is fair to ask or not but is there a way we can install gauges on these stupid things so we can see that it's getting to the point where they need to be emptied?

Because I have to tell you Grenny constantly sitting down to tend to this thing is getting on my last nerve.

You know it doesn't have to be complicated, a simple dial with two words EMPTY and FULL on either side would be good. When it gets full the arrow points to the FULL side and when it's empty the other side.

Simple concept.

I almost fell asleep it took forever to get the milk out and my little hands were going numb which got me thinking of ways to speed up this ridiculous process.

If there was a way I could maybe install a door in this thing that I could open each time the milk was ready that would GREATLY improve this whole procedure and make me happy!

I'm thinking I would just have to cut a seven by seven by seven square all around with a little knob and it'd be aces!

Like do I have to do this EVERY day? Why can't it pace itself? Make milk every OTHER day? What the hell? Like does anyone actually NEED this much milk?!

Apparently, because I looked it up in the Pseudomonarchia Bovinium (or, in other words, the hierarchy of cows) the average cow has one udder divided into four parts called "quarters".

But my cow has one teat, quarter, whatever and is inexplicably missing the other three.

It figures. Nothing normal happens to me ever. When Jason got "community service" all's he did was clean up garbage around the town and such, they didn't have him on a farm interacting with animals that were less than their counterparts. It's missing three quarters of its functionality!!! WHY IS IT NOT DEAD?

Jim Bob did not offer up an explanation as to why his cow is a mutant but it is obvious to me that its mother failed in her duty to murder this reject at birth and felt something akin to pity for it and now twenty years later I'm the poor idiot that has to deal with her ineptitude.

I WANT TO SAY TO HER, WHEREVER SHE IS, CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES BITCH!

YOUR KID AIN'T UP TO PAR WHEN IT'S BORN?

YOU EAT IT!

One time one of my kids came out looking funny and before my husband at the time (I think his name was Tim?) could say anything, I had the BBQ sauce and the baster and I was preparing that baby for a cookout and I said "Timmy!"

If that was his name, let's just assume it was, I don't want to have to sort through the fifty or so marriage licenses I've signed over the years to try and figure out which one he was and honestly given the amount of marriages I've had and how many Tims there ARE in Rhy'Din, I'd say there's a good chance his name WAS in fact Tim...I said "Timmy! How do you like your meat RARE OR MEDIUM?!"

Well he didn't take too kindly to this, started calling me all sorts of names like you do and I tell you I forgot all about the mongoloid I had given birth to and just ate Tim instead.

Oh hell hold on I dropped something.

Maybe it was the cow's other udder, teat, milk-spout...........Jesus my life sucks so hard right now I should burn this whole place to the ground.

Thought it was a phantom wind that blew my writing paper all over the place but it was just that stupid hot-headed kid throwing open the door to confront me.

I roughed him up a little.

Hey, this may not be my permanent residence but for the next month it is so he had best understand he can't be just traipsing in whenever he feels like it!

What if I was not decent?!

IT'S CALLED HAVING MANNERS YOU LITTLE BASTARD!

Not you, Grenny, Sean.

Sean is the bastard.

This time at least.

Where was I? Ahh yes, the mutant cow.

Instead of being evenly spread out across the four, all the milk is waiting to go through one narrow channel and the cow, being in considerable pain, is very ornery and Jim Bob is tired of getting kicked in the head every time he tries to milk it and says if he gets one more concussion, the insurance company is going to cancel his insurance.

This is what this imbecile shared with me over lunch the second day by saying, "You can levitate objects, teleport back and forth and are virtually indestructible so the obvious choice to milk this cow is you. If you don't do it I'm going to tell your probation officer that you are being defiant and there will be consequences."

To which I responded, "Maybe if you SHOT the damn thing and cooked all of us some steaks we'd have more energy to do the work you need done around here instead of wasting time with this DEFECTIVE animal for no other reason than you are a sick, sadistic bastard who has the audacity to think there are worse things in life than living on this farm with him. I'm here to tell you having come from some place that WAS arguably worse than this place before I had a chance to stay here in this freakish PARADISE and see it with my own eyes? That I'd rather gouge them out with popsicle sticks than spend one more minute with the likes of YOU."

So he's got me squeezing the hell out of this one proboscis sticking out of this thing, cow MOOING and KICKING away. I keep ducking so I don't get caught in the jaw with a hoof or whatever the hell this thing has for feet. I wouldn't be surprised if it had landing gear.

Can't be too sure! The fact that it's still alive to be quite honest living with its condition all these years is retarded enough.

I've been hexing this thing left and right, willing it to die and Jim Bob's faith in me aside?

IT AIN'T WORKING.

I am literally powerless on this farm!

It's like a Whore of Babylon Dead Zone, I swear.

Everyone else gets to do fun things like feed the pigs, maybe play in the mud with them a little, teach the chickens how to fight to the death, you know NORMAL farm leisure activities but me?

I get the dumbass cow.

You know if you walk about a mile or so away from the farm it sounds like a wolf howling that's how loud this stupid thing is?

Cows aren't supposed to sound like wolves. And it does. It's so embarrassing.

And me I have to escape the drudgery, the monotony of this idiotic work so I walk a lot. When I'm not yanking on dummy's freak appendage and all that is.

Well yesterday I got fed up.

There's no shame in saying I gave up. I did.

I couldn't take it anymore and neither could my hands and shoulders. And my hands get a LOT of exercise but this cow is too much!

So it goes to kick me right?

I don't know what I said exactly but it was probably something like "Listen Bessie!"

I don't actually know the cow's name but I know it is NOT Timmy (because I ate him remember?) so I'm calling it Bessie so I can tell the story.

I said, "Why don't you just EXPLODE like I want you to so I don't have to do this no more?! This is so dumb! Your mother failed epically and chickened out, okay?! You should NOT be alive! It's not right that her reluctance to do her SWORN DUTY under the universal law of all mothers everywhere eating their young should they be found wanting should affect the REST OF US! We have feelings too! DIE YOU STUPID COW!"

And then something, well, miraculous happened.

There's no other way to describe it really.

Bessie's three other teats?

JUST POPPED OUT!

She let out this long moo too and I, with my mouth ajar, sat there staring in horror.

She sprayed milk all over me too and I didn't even care I was so stunned.

I swear to you that cow did a dance it was so happy!

I don't know how Jim Bob got there as fast as he did but he bursts into the barn and he's like "Jumping Jehosephat, she's CURED!"

Then there was some hugging.

Oh dear God was there hugging.

You know like he hugged ME and stuff.

A lot.

God I wanted to kill him but Edna did say if I did that there'd be additional charges.

There was some crying too.

Jim Bob's wife, this chick whose name I never got, is like "Thank the Lord for sending us the arch-demon! She's saved!"

That didn't sound right to me because you know I'm NOT exactly in the category of "godsends" but this lady LOVES me, dude!

She sat me at the head of the table that night at dinner and everything.

But because Jim Bob didn't want to celebrate without knowing for sure this wasn't some freak thing that would soon correct itself and she'd go back to being udderless, he asked the cow sawbones to come over and examine Bessie.

Fifteen minutes of all of us standing there like jerks, Jim Bob and The Wife holding each other with bated excitement, Sean and his wobbly friends, me eating my corn muffin and the Doc turns to him and says, "Jim Bob, I'd like to run more tests to be sure but I am comfortable saying at this time that the heifer is healthy."

Me, I can't stand all this fuss over this dumb cow, I say, "Doc, what the hell happened to it? When I said I wanted it to explode, I didn't mean THIS. Are my powers restored now because it kinda sucks that I'm IMPOTENT here."

He turns to me and says, "This is a rare condition I've seen only one other time in my career."

I blinked, "You've met other arch-demons? WHO?! Name them for they shall not name I, they cower in the face of my SUPREMACY!"

He shook his head and sort of gave me an odd look and said, "No, I'm talking about the cow not you."

"Oh," I said, blinking a little.

He continued, "The cow's other teats were undescended."

"Gotcha," I said with a smirk, "but WHY were they...undescended? And how come they aren't no more?"

Then he went into some long medical diatribe where he says my INEXPERIENCE in milking the cow and the manner in which I was doing it, obviously WRONG, that's what he was implying, caused the teats which were stuck for reasons unknown to him to become unstuck and now Bessie is the way she's supposed to be.

Undescended teats.

Can you believe that?!

I can't even believe I wrote that.

How am I supposed to put that on my work-release resume and describe it in a way that isn't offensive-sounding?

You know what? Read this and tell me if what I wrote will be appropriate to send to future employers because when I get back home I'm going job-hunting and YOU are coming with me!

Objective: To obtain a position in the field of aerodynamics or a similar trade that will enable me to use my superior customer-service skills and showcase my friendly and outgoing disposition. I like to fly too. I have wings but you just cannot see them.

Jim Bob's Farm - 2016 to Present
Title: Mutant Cow Milker
Responsibilities:
Milking the damn cow known as Bessie who now has a full set of nipples which appear and reappear as if by magic. Three of which are for sale since she lasted two decades with only one. Buy two-get one free!
Responsible for the undescended teats of Bessie descending, thus ending a lifetime of pain and pitiful milk production from the beast. Yay. Go me. Can we cut her up and make stew now?

Universe-at-Large The Beginning of Time - 2016
Title: Archdemon known as The Whore of Babylon
Responsibilities:

Bringing misery to mankind
Eating lots of funnel cake and fried rice
Greasing up my chainsaw affectionately known as "The Widowmaker"
Trying to make a baby with Anubis but since that's not happening I got a Mongo-shelled tortoise named Horus instead. He's got a trust fund. He's LIKE a baby.

Education:

Was present and accounted for during the following historical events, although this list is not exhaustive but just some "Greatest Hits" of mine:
Cleopatra's suicide 30 B.C.
Sodom & Gommorrah - Wouldn't you like to know!
The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the resulting complete annihilation of Pompeii - 79 A.D.
The French Revolution - particularly Robespierre's assassination that was funny as HELL - 1794
Little Ricky's seventh birthday party where I convinced him his parents were plotting to kill him and he should strike first to avoid looking weak in the eyes of any usurpers to his throne - Three weeks ago this Saturday.
(full list on separate sheet with appropriate artifacts from the time period included and NO you cannot keep the Spear of Destiny, that's mine bitch.)

References:
Anubis Karos - Mortician & Commodities Trader and my future husband I love him so much! <3 <3
God Simon a.k.a. in his previous form : Mathew Simon - Commander of the Space Destroyer ANARCHISTIC NIHILISM I love him too but don't say nothing to nobody about that, it's a secret <3
Gren "Cube Skull" Blockman - My stupid ass brother who's allergic to mayo and hard work but drinks like a fish and has a gambling addiction amongst other bad character flaws.
Jewell Ravenlock - My BFF and THE prime suspect in The Mermaid Incident of 2005. And, aspiring homeless fairy queen.
Jesse - My other BFF and THE greatest Arch-Mage in the history of them, all around great scientist and she bakes a mean tuna casserole.
The alien squid-cat Bob - He owes me money. Don't let him tell you otherwise. When I get home I'm going to stuff him in a blender and drink him for the rest of eternity.
Rena The Arch Witch Cronin - Mostly collects dust and is as irrating as a splinter underneath one's nailbed, you'd rather gargle acid than sit with her for any extended period of time.
Uncle Dave - He's one tough S.O.B. It says so on his business card. Ask him. If you dare.
-------------------------------------------------- --------

I realize it needs some improvement so your feedback and input is appreciated but don't go getting pedantic like you always do, Grenny. I can't stand it when you do that.

OK so I couldn't take living on the farm anymore so I left.

I also realize this will likely cause complications down at the probation office much like my having a fake bomb scare called in got them all in a panic a month or so ago but it has to be done.

I'm not cut out for milking, Grenny.

My skills are more suited for hand to hand combat, ruining marriages, lives, and whispering to sleeping children that tis better to grow up a serial killer than to do what Mommy and Daddy tells you.

If I get two out of ten to follow me, I've done a great job.

In the end though, it was decided that Bessie's condition might be temporary and the doctor, concerned she might be teat-less again any moment, installed a girdle of sorts around her that prevents her milk-spouts from crawling back upside in her body again.

When I watched them fit her with this contraption I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it and especially Bessie's reaction. She mooed and kicked worse than she ever had before! I tried to tell Jim Bob that he should just let nature take its course but he wouldn't listen.

He said that my inexperience in the field of cow-milking did not qualify me as an expert and ergo I was not to comment on it because of that.

While they fussed with the cow, I grabbed Sean by his testicles and dragged him out of the barn.

Told him we were going to take a road trip.

The whole way home I would laugh periodically about that poor cow that even I, as evil as I am, feels sorry for.

I'm walking down the street here right now, narrating this to Sean who is under my thrall (a procedure you will thank me for not detailing for you much later on when I see you again), and I just passed the candy shop where a young and particularly virile Preston Mannix felt me up once and called me by the name of "Ladybug" and I'm realizing, you know this place ain't that bad?

Yea though it stinks of Xanth's eyestalk perspiration and there are a number of meat puppets I'd like have frozen and then smashed in twain with a sledgehammer, it is home.

Our home, Grenny.

I think though when I get a chance I'm going to go back and save Bessie from those idiots. It's demeaning I think and I don't understand what demeaning means although I have been told I often demean others. She shouldn't have to live out the rest of her days like that.

As the great poet and philosopher Andrew Dice Clay once said: "C'mon baby, lose the bra."

Upon returning home to Rhy'Din, I did two things of note which have delayed our reunion but that I wish to impart to you now:

1. I found the nearest noodle bar and immediately sucked down a bowl of ramen which was mightily delicious and,

2. I bashed a woman's face in with one of those "CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS: PLEASE KEEP OUR PARKS CLEAN!" signs you and your nutjob friends furiously planted around town in a last-ditch effort to stop what you perceive to be (yet I think is frickin hilarious) the "wholesale dumping of toxic chemicals onto our majestic parklands and forests". That's an actual quote Grenny. You said this to me.

Anyway, your misguided paranoia aside, she bled like a slaughtered lamb all over the picture of you on the front of the sign demonstrating how to throw out a plastic cup into a waste receptacle like this is an activity even the dumbest of meatpuppets [read: Xavier Mues, he's the dumbest, of that you can be sure] needs assistance with learning how to do.

However, I want you to know that on the BACK of the sign I endorsed your message by writing [in her blood no less] 'THIS MESSAGE IS APPROVED BY THE WHORE OF BABYLON - MAY ALL OF YOU MISERABLE MAGGOTS DIE SCREAMING, NAKED, IN THE DARK'

There were no cheers to be heard after I did this but I'm sure if there were some of your supporters standing around, loitering as they do in public spaces, making nuisances of themselves, they might have showed their appreciation for my show of support by maybe patting me on the back or clapping.

Or something.

Who knows what your friends really do when I'm not watching? Half of them are degenerate, unemployed losers who like to use natural materials like leaves and twigs to make gifts for people because nothing says FRIENDSHIP like opening a 100% recyclable envelope made from the fermented excrement of ferrets and have a gazillion ants crawling all over their table as they read their touching and thoughtful card. Some real scholars and thinkers you have as buddies, let me tell you.

But when me and MY friends run someone through with a sword, we're the "problem", not the solution, right? YOU are the better role model, right?

You should run for political office, Grenny. Seriously.

The more I think about how much energy you waste on a daily basis, breathlessly preaching to the meatpuppets how to live better so ALL can live better, the more I'm convinced they deserve a crazed conservationist weirdo like you to be their leader.

We should, to conserve electricity and not be forced to revert to candles as our only sources of light in our homes (especially if YOU have your way), stick your crazy ass on a giant treadmill which would then be attached to the power plant somehow and watch as you ran your little feet off for a CLEANER AND MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS RHY'DIN.

This could be your platform, no pun intended. You could call yourself "Gren the Green Gerbil" which would not only emphasize what you stood for but would also likely help those who struggle with alliterative phrases and tongue twisters.

Not only would you win over the hearts of those with speech impediments but you'd attract the attention of every n'er-do-well with a cause yet who lacks the resources to spread their message from miles around like you.

We could even outfit you with advertising messages from corporate sponsors on your clothing to make some extra money for all those damn polar bears you keep squawking about.

Yeah, remember? I can't forget them!

Side note: Rhy'Din has never and will likely never have a native polar bear population. This is likely due to the fact that our climate is temperate and is not, oh what's the word, a frozen TUNDRA which polar bears are known to frequent elsewhere.

If it weren't for the frenzied efforts of you and your lunatic cohorts, those polar bears you absconded with from wherever you stole them from would've never had to know the horrors of a semi-subtropical Summer and would, even now, be rolling around in the very snow they were likely born in prior to your getting involved and requesting they get "asylum" here.

Interestingly enough Rhy'Din DID used to have an asylum but sadly my old friend Mad Max who ran it died some years back (from natural causes if memory serves and NOT poisoned drinking water), the building fell into a state of decay and not to put too fine a point on it, Grenny, we have no real place to house YOU now forget the polar bears.

Ergo, it's time we made you useful.

I know I made fun of you back when you made OverTwerp. I remember the exchange between us well. How HANDILY I trounced you in the circular contraptions and the absolute thunderous CHEERS there were that were heard THAT day. I also remember how badly you took the loss and refused to concede.

You were butt-hurt, as the youngins these days now say.

As I realize this is a turn of phrase you would never say due to its inclusion of an anatomical part you are FOREVER apologizing to the rest of us for having (hint: we have butts too by the way, even I, and might I say mine is more curvy than yours) because this very fact embarrasses you to all possible ends, I think even you can agree this is how you were feeling.

But if one considers that even though crushing disappointments such as this are a mainstay and repetitive theme in your life, they HAVE ultimately prepared you for a life of public service.

Here I am, scratching my head day after day, wondering exactly how far I have to go to assassinate and exterminate entire species and, failing MISERABLY I'll admit, and all along I had the answer right underneath my very nose!

YOU, Grenny, are the answer!

Why should I waste my time stalking and harassing meatpuppets in the hopes they have heart attacks and die so I can claim their souls when all I REALLY have to do is unleash YOU on them?

Think about it before you knock it.

If you agree to run for public office, probably Environmental Protection Officer, or whatever you want to call yourself, I will pay for your campaign costs IN FULL.

In return, I will get in you a perfect vehicle through which to slowly kill the spirits of and enthusiasm for life in the very meatpuppets who vote for you.

One recycled water bottle at a time.

I don't have to murder them when you'll do it for me with your daily aspiration tweets!

Yeah I know about the Tweeterverse.

The place where the puppets write short messages to each other like they're code-breakers in some long, forgotten war.

I even signed myself up for an account. Naturally since I refer to one of MY body parts as a "tweeter" I was very confused concerning the whole premise especially when I came across messages talking about recipes, as an example, and not the kind I was expecting but after some simple instruction by my I.T. guy Jared, who single-handedly helped me take down the owners of the WILDLY successful game Legends of Zod:Princess in Peril, I was able to start posting my own little messages of hope which, I also admit, were NOT well-received.

I'm not, as they say, relatable, Grenny.

I am "off-putting" as I have heard tell.

When I speak, the collective sphincter of the Great Unwashed contracts in fear whereas when you speak everyone starts high-fiving each other and excitedly talks about how many years it takes for styrofoam to FULLY break down and the plight of those ridiculous polar bears you named Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas.

It's a wonder with names like those that the damn things don't drown themselves in the closest body of water they can find that can accommodate their size and is deep enough to actually kill them.

If you do manage to get elected and after I rescue Bessie the cow, I will be happy to give her to you as a campaign contribution. She will absolutely love the sort of individualized and sensitive attention only you can give her.

Unless, that is, her fourth nipple doesn't fall off which you should expect because this cow is CHALLENGED.

Holy guacamole is it challenged.

Listen I have to get going here. My weekly recent parolees meeting is about to start and as I'm the "keynote speaker", whatever the hell that means, I need to make sure I'm in there ahead of everyone else or Edna's going to write me up for insubordination again.

I hate this woman with a passion.

Do me a favor and hire her to be your manager so I can be free of her for a little while? Please?

I'll write more after I get out of jail for my probation violation.

Before you ask, it's a long story and no, the droplets of red on this letter (which is made from the freeze-dried excretions of a three-month-dead swamp rat) are NOT the lady's blood whose face I bashed in with your sign but pomegranate juice because I have a thing for them and I sometimes dribble.

It's sort of an unspoken rule that the residents of the infernal regions eat pomegranates, Grenny.

It's not a sex-thing as you might suspect.

You have such a dirty mind you half-baked industrious little environmental warrior you!

Love,

Your Older Sister Who Will Always Support You Even Though You Wear a Cape to Bed

If you're like me (and I know you're not because if there's one thing you and I have in common it's being NOTHING ALIKE) you walk around in a constant state of confusion as to how HALF the walking meatsticks get ANYTHING accomplished on a daily basis and still manage to be as utterly retarded as they all are.

As a recent example beautifully illustrates (and by recent I mean the last hour and a half that I've been sitting in what's left of this train station being questioned by so-called "authorities" again) there are a lot of humans who cannot cope with disasters when they strike yet who are employed in positions which suggest THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BE.

Like when you see a police officer. In your understanding of what cops job functions are, you are likely under the impression that should you be attacked in view of this person, it is their JOB to keep you safe and arrest the perpetrator of this heinous act so you can live to fight another landfill being erected in your neighborhood, another day.

You would not expect the cop to go running screaming in the opposite direction leaving you alone to fend off the attacker by yourself any more than you would expect a child who happened to be passing by at that exact moment to have the physical strength necessary to overcome the assailant and subdue them long enough so you could run and get help or escape.

Because children are only good for eating, not taking down knife-wielding maniacs, as I've pointed out to you numerous times over as many painful years.

But cops?

Yeah they are SUPPPOSED TO be trained for situations like this and they taste terrible. Just in case you were wondering.

Let's say you're on a train.

Not the toy ones you keep in your bread basket after I found them under your bed that one time and confronted you about them, but a REAL TRAIN, Grenny, okay? You're going from Point A to Point B. Doesn't matter where, doesn't matter when. Could be tomorrow. Don't get distracted here, this is ONLY a hypothetical.

As a passenger of this vessel you can REASONABLY assume that you will get to Point B in the EXACT CONDITION you were in when you embarked on the journey at Point A, right? So long as everyone stays in their seats, the conductor is doing his job and any old passenger doesn't pull on any levers marked "For Emergency Use Only" causing the train to suddenly LURCH from the tracks it is on and land in, say, a shopping mall parking lot, wiping out every single member of The Family Dillard as they were going about their Christmas shopping, a brand new Dodge Avenger containing two toy poodles named Muffy and Mittens, and an old lady who was being helped to a waiting vehicle by a good samaritan, you are not crazy for having that expectation I don't think. If this were me, I'd have the same expectation.

Because trains are SUPPPOSED TO go from Point A to Point B without incident.

There's that word again. Well, two words.

SUPPOSED TO.

It's just sometimes with these two words their exact meaning tends to vary because in my limited experience posing as a meatpuppet, SUPPOSED TO is apparently relative to each situation and has nothing to do with personal responsibility or one's taking an oath to protect and serve. Or so I've seen. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

Which explains how WHEN a passenger pulled one of those irresponsibly marked levers, because they weren't aware of the sheer magnitude of damage it would cause (and trust me if they were they would've pulled a lot more of them a LOT SOONER), and the train as a result started hopping around like a Mexican jumping bean on the tracks, took out the aforementioned list of people and things and then later when another train was coming down the tracks then CAREENED into the parts of the first train which were still on the track, it then ROCKETED into the train station on like a wheel and then EXPLODED into a chaotic mix of machinery, people and turnstiles.

And, why, later as the dust was literally settling the employees of the train station who were still alive and charged with passenger safety, took one look at all the chaos and instead of doing THEIR JOBS that they SIGNED UP FOR AND ARE PAID TO DO, claimed they were too "triggered" by these series of unfortunate events and immediately sought professional help at a nearby hospital to deal with it all.

Leaving me, one of only two passengers surviving this insanity, to deal with the aftermath and other cops who are actually interested in doing THEIR jobs. Lucky me.

Like Stanley.

He's a fifteen year veteran on the force. This is a slang-term for a cop's work and is not the imaginary forcefield of magic you and your weirdo Comic-Con friends seem to think exists in Nature and is the reason why most of you sometimes dress up like Druid-looking creatures and pretend to beat the hell out of each other with glowing light sticks made from the very plastic you decry as ENVIRONMENTALLY CATASTROPHIC or whatever you say when YOU are feeling "triggered."

Triggered.

What in the actual HELL does that mean, I wonder?

Don't answer that, I don't really care.

Stanley is a good cop, I suppose. If you ask his boss and coworkers, the sheer fact that Stanley has managed to work fifteen years at his job and not murder anyone in cold blood just for being who they are, having the color skin they do or minding their own business is a miracle as most cops cannot follow procedure because even if they can read the protocol manual they all were given to sign when they were hired, everyone knows that's just for show and most cops exercise the worst of judgment every single day of their careers.

Just not Stanley.

Stanley feels that so long as you are law abiding, he's not going to blow your brains out all over your dashboard during what his sinister cohorts refer to as a "routine traffic stop" as you're driving to the market to get milk because you just so happen to be PURPLE (which isn't a crime at all, even I change colors in certain degrees of light, just ask Anpu!) because he realizes, like I do, and many others with brains that no one can control the color of their skin any more than they can help the fact that they were born with Free Will unlike me and MY "people."

But Stanley DOES tend to get a little upset when a train goes from being intact to a bajillion little pieces all over a train station and he and his same colleagues cannot determine what is train part and what is bone fragment because every little piece at that miniscule scale is indistinguishable from the rest.

With the exception of the eyeballs. Those Stanley and his buddies could pick out amidst the debris JUST FINE.

So this is where I came in. To assist with the "recovery" efforts of the harder to find bits and pieces.

Stanley found me sifting through the wreckage collecting eyeballs in my hand like marbles and said, "Excuse me, Miss?"

Startled because I was so focused on the task at hand, I jumped a little and Mister Schenck's left eyeball flew up out of my hand and landed next to Stanley's right foot and Missus Huber's right arm. Which was suprisingly whole and not exploded as you might think.

"Yes?" I said in surprise and stared at Stanley in first confusion and then realizing what he was based on the uniform he was wearing, smiled and then glanced down at his right foot where Schenck's eyeball was in danger of being squished.

"Are you with the Coroner's office?" Stanley asked, equally confused by me as I was him.

I know you do not like when I lie to further my agenda Grenny but he put me on the spot and I was a little nervous so I said "Why yes I am!" not realizing that I would later be asked to provide some sort of documentation to this effect and my saying that I was slated to marry the Egyptian God of the Dead and him technically being a "mortician" if you wanted to break down Anpu's job function to its SIMPLEST form would NOT, as I naively suspected at first, be enough to go on.

These meat puppets are so damn annoying with wanting proof all the time! Ugh. Doesn't anyone have any FAITH any more?! It worked beautifully for thousands of years! Why change it now!

Stanley pointed to my hand with a grimace, "Are those eyeballs?"

I nodded. See? I can tell the truth sometimes! "Yes, they are. Would you like one?" And I can share when appropriate!

You taught me this Grenny. How to share. So see you ARE making a difference after all!

"No! Absolutely not! They need to be placed in evidence bags!" Stanley cried as his cop buddy Matt came over to investigate what all the yelling was about.

It was at this moment I leaned down to pluck Missus Huber's right arm up off the ground and used it as a focal point for them to look at as I emphasized my thoughts and feelings on the matter.

"They are all mixed together and in pieces," I pointed out, Huber's right index finger pointing in their faces. "What does it matter what I do with it now? It's not like SHE is using it! We don't even know where SHE is! Probably in one of those brochure racks over there, if I had to wager a guess but I could be wrong!"

"Put that down!" Stanley snapped as Matt leaned in to gently take the arm from my grasp.

I was a little reluctant to let it go so there was a slight tug-of-war for a few seconds before Stanley screamed, "Woman, what the HELL is wrong with you?!"

I, in my manic state because Stanley was yelling at me, replied, simply, "I'm the Whore of Babylon."

And that's when things took a turn for the worse.

Wait, hold on, Stanley's yelling at me that they found what looks like an intestinal tract wrapped around the steering mechanism and he needs help identifying who it might belong to.

I was encouraged to write this letter to you, wishing you joy and happiness during the holidays by two of your best friends, Skullsplitter and G-Bob (you know, the two demons you sent after me), and I was also asked to tell you that I am doing this of my own volition, despite being held against my will for three and a half hours and tortured with such things as mayonnaise and feminine hygiene products, and in no way is this letter being written under duress. Really. Skullsplitter says hi.

Life has been (the word “peaceful” is scratched out and replaced with “boring”) since you’ve disappeared over the last year. I have devoted my time to cleaning up the forest, including several drives to help remove litter. Did you know that since you’ve been missing, gyro wrappers littering the forest have decreased an astonishing 87% over the past year? I sense a connection here . . . but I digress.

Besides winning the Hydra tournament with my new team, Hydra Foils, I haven’t been around the rings much. I’ve been busy with my Ranger duties. Do you remember Noira? The one you claimed was my mistress but who in reality is just a platonic friend? We had an adventure together. Werewolves were involved. Since I have a latent phobia I forgot most of it already. I tried to take ginkgo biloba, but then I forgot what I was taking it for.

Also, I was involved in the Mini Mentee Initiative over in the Outback. The idea was to help the orphans of RhyDin City by giving them a positive role model to hang out for a week or so. I got a Halfling girl named Lorleen, who thankfully is very much eager to become a Ranger when she grows up. She actually helped stop me from getting mauled by a drunk (the word “teddy” is scratched out and replaced with “grizzly”) bear. Her reward was a grand tour of our Rangers compound, and an impossibly large amount of chocolate pudding that she downed in the mess hall. Our headmaster Perrigan told her to come back when she hits eighteen and he’ll see if she’s Ranger material. That alone caused her to pump her fists in the air all the way back to the orphanage.

I seem to be missing a VERY COLLECTABLE First Edition “Danger Rangers” Action Figure from my shelf in my bedroom. You know, the “Captain Brick Justice” one with the cleft chin and the Power Smoothie accessory? It has been missing ever since that night that I woke up at 2 AM to find you standing over me with your hands on your hips and that (the word “crazy” is crossed out and “concerned” is written in) look in your eyes. You then proceeded to give me a (“stern lecture”) about Falamere’s Falafel Stand taking over Rita’s Gyros Whether This City Wants Them Or Not. I’m not naming any names, but if it was returned, I would be greatly appreciative.

Another year gone. Well, here’s to 2017 and bigger, better things. (“And more peaceful days like the last year” is crossed out.)

Anyway, Happy Holidays!

Your fearful Ranger,

Gren Blockman

P.S. G-Bob says hi too, and wants that DVD you promised him for “persuading” me to write this letter.

P.S.S. Now Skullsplitter wants a DVD too, on top of the 10% off for life card from Rita’s Questionable Meats and Dubiously Legal Treats.